An American Hippie in Israel (1972)

Most of the time, when going into one of these "Worst Movies Ever Made" I, at least, have some kind of rough handle on what kind of thing I can broadbrushly expect. IE: This is a romance movie, this is a monster movie, this is a science fiction movie. This week's and latest entry is An American Hippie in Israel. An Israeli film, for a start, but in English language, and I will be frankly honest. I have absolutely no idea what this movie is. Wikipedia calls it a "metaphorical counter-culture" movie which are... just words to me really. IMDB label it with "Action, Comedy, Sci-Fi" and similarly Rotten Tomatoes label it a "Action Comedy" which, ok, is giving me a bit of a grounds to work from, but I have absolutely no idea what I'm about to watch without taking the liberty of completely ruining it for myself and reading the plot synopsis first. I do know one thing for certain, that for many decades this film was considered lost until the good people at Grindhouse dredged it up and made it available for all of us to hate again a second time around as it appears that in 1972 it was widely considered to be one of the worst things committed to video that year, so terrible apparently that nobody thought to keep it and it vanished for years. One of the things I love about this blog is working my way through these crazy obscure movies that literally nobody else will ever watch and learning just for myself, first hand, why they were, or are, considered so terrible. Let's see if I still feel that way after I get finished with this one.

Mike (Asher Tzarfati), a self-professed hippy from New York promptly arrives in Israel and hitchhikes his way into a getting a ride from local lady Elizabeth (Lily Avidan). After a very short round of questions conveyed through some very robotic dialogue the pair immediately run into 2 men standing in the road. 2 men dressed in black suits and black tophats with obviously whited out faces with Mike retorting "I know these characters." turns out they are apparently following him 'all over the world'. And after threatening them with violence Mike jumps back into the car with Elizabeth and they drive off... They drive back to Elizabeth's place, where she invites Mike in - this man, she has never met before now and is a complete stranger - and inside Mike explains that he travels around the world hitchhiking after his experiences in the Vietnam war, and his negative opinion of it, left him confused and angry and wanting to run away. This leads to Elizabeth interrupting him mid-rant with a kiss and she ends up having sex with him - this man, she has never met before now and is a complete stranger. Mike and Elizabeth, now seemingly very much a couple, then proceed to dance and goof around in town, catching the attention of some of the other local hippies and eventually a big gang forms and they all proceed to make their way to some abandoned factory / building site and 2 girls in the group sink an anti-war folk song, which was pretty decent actually, whilst the others sit around smoking and drinking. Song done, Mike then proceeds to give a speech, imploring the group to help him "build a place" "truly free" without violence and without orders. Y'know, standard hippy stuff. The rest of the group decide to make a plan to travel to a deserted island, they all cheer, and then have a bit of dance / freakout. But this is interrupted when the pale faced men from earlier walk into the party and machinegun everybody dead, except for Mike and Elizabeth and 2 others, who are later introduced as Komo (Shmuel Wolf) and Francoise (Tzila Karney). They get back into Elizabeth's car and drive to another place that looks like a quarry where Mike makes a speech to everyone saying they are going to carry on with their plan in the name of everyone who wanted to join them, and then they drive around laughing and kissing each other whilst saying "you're beautiful" alot, picking a... a goat up at a market along the way... As they're driving Mike has this completely silent dream sequence, that I won't pretend to understand... but it does feature a scene of him bashing - what I think - are 2 robots to death with a really long sledgehammer... until Francoise wakes him up by pouring water on his face which apparently is HILARIOUS. As it gets too hot on the journey to... wherever the fuck they are going, Francoise and Komo decide it's too hot and get naked, which results in them bonking in the back seats, and eventually stopping at a roadside store, Mike and Komo - now clothed - pick up a bunch of things including what looks like an inflatable boat and some oars before continuing on and arriving at the location of the aforementioned deserted island. Suddenly now decked out in swimwear, the quartet and the goat row their way to the island before declaring they are free, stripping off and partaking in a bit of skinny dipping. After having a bit of dance, back in their swimwear again now, and then having a bit of a chill, the foursome light a fire for the evening and have some food as they talk about how free and wonderful they feel, and they all take turns delivering a message to the world; mostly about how bad and contaminated it is, that sounds so phoney it's like they've all been brainwashed to be honest... before they bed down for the night and - genuinely - have a foursome. The following morning Komo awakes first and alerts the others that their boat is missing (I thought they didn't want to leave?!). They split up to search for it but it's nowhere to be found, so Mike volunteers to swim back to land, take the car, get food and then return. But as Mike get's halfway across, he is forced to turn back when his route is intercepted by sharks. Coming to the realisation they might be trapped for a little while, Mike and Komo head off to search for food but find nothing, and after Mike and Komo have an argument because Komo can only speak Herbrew, doesn't speak English and Mike can't understand him, they head back to the girls with only limpets to eat but the girls both refuse which just annoys Mike even more and he ends up eating them all. Another night passes and the following morning, the sharks are still swimming around the island preventing Mike from making the crossing and Francoise is the first to turn on Mike, angry at him for getting them in this mess she goes to bludgeon him with a rock but Mike stops her and fight breaks out, during which both girls lose their bikini tops because of course they do... and the group is separated into Mike and Elizabeth and Francoise and Komo who both claim a section of the island for their own. Although both girls seem to be unwilling prisoners rather than standing by their respective men, and Elizabeth is the first to strike, smashing Mike over the head with a stone before running off. Similarly Francoise also escapes but Komo goes after her dragging her back and beating her up as he does. Mike catches up with Elizabeth and drags her back to his spot, again also beating her up and both men appear to regressed into animalistic cavemen by this point for... some reason... Then the goat is back, despite being missing for the last half hour, and hearing it's bleats, the 2 couples race to grab it first before the other, but they meet in the middle and a fight break out which results in them literally beating each other to death. Watched on from the distance by the 2 pale faced men from earlier who climb into Elizabeth's car as the movie ends.

This was utter, utter tripe. It didn't say anything, it didn't communicate anything, it wasn't even really that artistic. It didn't even really have that much of discernible plot? It was just... stuff happening and then it ended. It mostly just felt like an excuse to have 2 attractive women run around with no top on to be honest. I literally have no idea what the viewer was supposed to take away from this? And I'm not great with the whole pseudo intellectual stuff, I'll be honest, like most of Inception was a bit lost on me really, but I don't think this movie even had that? It was just nonsense. Baffling, baffling nonsense.

And it was just really, really terrible. I don't know if it was my version or what, but it sounded like the dialogue was layered in afterwards? I thought it was maybe English dubbed at first but I read the lip movements of the characters speaking and they seemed to match up with the dialogue, so no, I don't think it was? But every line of dialogue, every line, sounded so staunched and alien. Like the people speaking didn't quite fully understand the words they were pronouncing? Maybe they didn't? And everything was so un-natural and forced. It was abysmal. Absolute abysmal.

There was some positives to be found here though, the musical numbers both in movie and as background soundtracking, for the most part, were decent. The anti-war song at the beginning was alright, very of it's time but I'm ok with that. And the cinematography, although a little bit odd at times, for the large part was alright. And it was shot - to a degree - interestingly enough that it felt like a proper movie and not just some random holiday home recording. That is... about where it ends really in terms of positives.

There wasn't really an identifiable storyline, or plot, I mean sure: there was a visual narrative: Mike shows up in Israel, Elizabeth falls for him, they meet up with Francoise and Komo, sail to island, get stuck there and die. That's it pretty wrapped up neatly really, and I guess you could say 'well, what more do you want?' but it didn't really feel like a movie plot? It was just a sequence of events happening. And happening badly. I had no idea what the dream sequence was all about. I didn't understand the significance of the pale faced men gunning everyone down and then being around at the end. You could say it was abstract imaging and I just wasn't clever enough to understand it - and you would be right - but I don't think it was? I just think it didn't make sense in the first place?

Like I said at the beginning, I feel like this was mostly just an excuse to get 2 pretty girls topless, for the most part. And the rest of the movie was almost surplus to that. It wasn't particularly artistic, and if it was it was bad art, not the good kind and it wasn't particularly moralistic. I don't know what the moral of the story was supposed to be? Hippies are bad people? Hippies are misunderstood people? Who the fuck knows? I don't? And I watched it.

Absolute garbage. I got very little from having watched this. Very little. And by definition, I think I've said before, bad is the absence of anything good. And by fair assessment there was good elements to be found in this movie, but as a fully fleshed out cinematic production, no. No. This just wasn't a good movie. Not even, really, a little bit. And I couldn't say to someone: oh you should watch An American Hippie in Israel for <this reason>. Because... I don't have a <this reason> other than, watch it out of morbid curiosity and come back to me if you actually understood any of it's weird abstract messages. So I guess, if nothing else, it has that going for it. But uh... that's about it really. Strong Zero.